HP 250 Notebook: specifications and reviews

The hero of today's review is an inexpensive and quiet laptop for everyday and office work HP 250 from Hewlett Packard. The device has a 15-inch screen, an economical processor "Celeron" N2830, RAM in 2 GB and a winchester with a capacity of 500 GB. As a preinstalled operating system was chosen x64 "Windows" 8.1.

Quite a modest price for a laptop at 14 thousand rubles is a good incentive to buy, despite the widespread savings at all levels of assembly line. Let's try to determine if the company has gone too far with this very saving, and find out what flaws the future owner of the laptop will have to tolerate.

Design and build quality

The HP 250 G3 notebook is completely made of matte plastic, which does not collect fingerprints and does not slip, which is good - the surface will not be distracted from work by a prompt cleaning. The device has a small thickness of 2.8 cm and a relatively low weight - 2.15 kg, so the transfer or transportation to the workplace problems should not cause.

The gaps between the individual parts of the notebook are almost invisible, but the quality of the assembly and the strength of the design did not exceed any special expectations from the budget device. At numerous forums and online stores devoted to the HP 250 series, reviews are full of minor flaws: the lid easily succumbs to pressure, self-service causes a number of problems - the bottom is not removed and there is no lid. All that the user can do himself is just replace the battery.

Interfaces

Ports laptop HP 250 G3 clearly cheated and it's unclear why, because the space on the device is more than enough. There is only one port of the USB 3.0 standard, two by 2.0, an outdated 100-megabit Internet module (modern models have been equipped with gigabit modules for about three years), a DVD drive and a card reader.

For the video outputs there are two ports - VGA and HDMI, together with a universal audio connector. Location is not very convenient - too close to the front edge of the device: on the right side, the drive interrupts the drive, and the ventilation holes on the left interfere.

Communications

In addition to the standard Internet protocols, the HP 250 laptop supports the Wi-Fi wireless networks at the 802.11 b / g / n points and the fourth-generation Bluetooth. For all this, the built-in module Ralink of the RT3290 series is responsible. The connection works quite stably without any outstanding reception quality at a distance of no more than 10 meters from the router.

It's worth warning Linux fans about possible problems with the Ralink module, which is not known for its best reputation due to its drivers for this OS. Communication via Bluetooth is too often interrupted and does not work correctly. Alternatively, you can choose to choose any other laptop with modules from Intel, Broadcom or Qualcomm Atheros. With them, work on Linux will not cause any problems.

HP 250 speakers

The characteristics of the speakers do not allow you to hear at least some bass, and the sound output is muffled and flat. You can use local acoustics only to watch the videos on "Youtube", but otherwise it is better to give preference to third-party headphones or external speakers.

Input Devices

The keyboard of the device is flat and the keys are pressed too gently, and the navigation arrows are very critical and cause dissatisfaction with the owners (only the HP 250 notebook is a problem). Feedback from users is full of bewilderment: why do the arrows "up" and "down" in their space occupy the space of one ordinary keyboard button. To this, of course, you can get used to, but during work more than once will have to remember the designers with an evil word.

The touchpad has a sufficient working area and, oddly enough, for the budget model - it responds well to all multi-touch gestures and touches. For inexpensive laptops such a quality manipulator, if not a rarity, then certainly not a standard.

Screen

The device has a standard 15-inch screen with a matrix from LG and supports a resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. The brightness of the HP 250 screen is only 207 cd / m ² and despite the matte finish, it's necessary to forget about working outdoors on a sunny day, except maybe on a cloudy day or in shady conditions.

Affects the presence of a high level of black color of about 0.67 cd / m ² , as a result, the palette seems grayish. The level of contrast also does not shine with high rates and is only 336: 1 because of what the image seems flat and faded.

Many mistakenly believe that for office work such indicators are quite acceptable, but the worker sitting at the laptop will get tired much less if the white color is white, black is black, and the gamut of gray will not be cast by blue light, and the screen resolution would do well to make more .

Display HP 250 does not meet these requirements, forcing to think about alternative options, especially since in this price range you can find models with high screener and gamma saturation.

It's sad that the manufacturer has not heard its customer for a year, shouting about the need for a complete rework of the display. Many fans of the OS "Windos" only because of problems with the screen go to really high-quality equipment in the face of Apple and its brainchild MasVoook, no longer hoping for a change in the situation for the better.

Finally, you can add that the TN-matrix as always "pleased" with such a small viewing angle, which is already considered to be the norm. In order to show something to people sitting next to you, you have to turn the device almost at right angles, otherwise they will see the "porridge" from inverted, distorted and dim colors. The problem is solved with the help of the IPS-matrix, but such a pleasure can be seen in models more than 30 thousand rubles.

Performance

Notebook HP 250, in addition to the configuration with the processor "Celeron" N2830 and 2 GB of RAM can be executed in a modification with the line "Pentium" N3530 with 4 GB of RAM. The difference between these two options is very noticeable, especially since an independent replacement of RAM, in the absence of a special cover, requires a complete disassembly of the device, and the processor is soldered into the motherboard.

Therefore, if there is a desire to purchase a laptop more efficiently, it is better to immediately stop at the configuration with Pentium. The company has provided even more choice of capacities for the 250-line, like Core i3 or Core i5, but this is a completely different price category (19-24 thousand rubles).

The built-in video card from HD Graphics on the BayTrail chipset can not cope with powerful graphics applications, so you can play games only for things like GTA: San Andreas or Counter Strike, but not much more powerful.

Fans of video can watch any movies up to the resolution of Full HD, but with the technology "Ultra" there may be problems in the form of delays and insufficient optimization.

Summarizing

HP 250 can be bought for 14-15 thousand rubles, which automatically forgives the laptop many shortcomings. The speed of the device is acceptable and does not differ from analogues with the processors BayTrail. What really annoys many users is the impossibility of self-replacement of RAM or hard drive, as well as very mediocre characteristics of the display along with the low operating time of the device in the offline mode.

Working with the keyboard as a whole is comfortable (with the exception of navigational arrows) and does not differ much from competing laptops. You can recommend a laptop to people who are aware of all the shortcomings of the model and are ready to reconcile with them, otherwise the advice is unambiguous - it is much better to save money for a better laptop.